1. Field
Subject matter disclosed herein relates to a memory device, and more particularly to a single pulse algorithm for programming a phase change memory.
2. Information
Phase change memory (PCM) may operate based, at least in part, on behavior or properties of one or more particular phase change materials, such as chalcogenide glass or germanium antimony telluride (GST), just to name a few examples. Electrical resistivities of crystalline or amorphous states of such materials may be different from one another, thus presenting a basis by which information may be stored. The amorphous, high resistance state may represent a stored first binary state and the crystalline, low resistance state may represent a stored second binary state. Of course, such a binary representation of stored information is merely an example: Phase change memory may also be used to store multiple memory states, represented by varying degrees of phase change material resistivity, for example.
In a PCM cell, transitioning from an amorphous state to a crystalline state may involve a transition period that is short enough to provide a relatively fast PCM write operation while being long enough to allow a transition from an amorphous state to a crystalline state. Accordingly, a transition period that is too short may result in a PCM cell comprising a mixture of material in an amorphous and a crystalline state, leading to an undefined memory cell state resulting in a failure of the PCM cell, for example.